LIGHTS, CAMERA, REACTION

TRADITIONAL PAPARAZZI HAVE GIVEN WAY TO A NEW BREED OF VIDEORAZZI, WHO ENRICH THEMSELVES BY ENRAGING CELEBRITIES

IN FEDERICO FELLINI'S 1961 FILM La Dolce Vita, the mistress of the journalist played by Marcello Mastroianni castigates him and his photographer companion Paparazzo by telling them, "You're a lot of vultures! Don't you respect anything?" But even the celebrity-obsessed Paparazzo would be shocked at what some of his spiritual and nomenclatural descendants are doing nowadays. Updated with video cameras, they lie in wait, they stalk, they prod, they provoke--all in the hope of selling embarrassing footage to the tabloid-TV shows. They are not paparazzi but an aggressive new breed of videorazzi--or, as Los Angeles-based celebrity photographer Phil Ramey proudly dubs...

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